Does the Paris Agreement Open the Door to Geoengineering?
Center for Progressive Reform 2015-12-22
Summary:
If we're serious about keeping warming "well below" 2°C, geoengineering may be necessary.
The Paris agreement establishes an aspirational goal of holding climate change to 1.5°C, with a firmer goal of holding the global temperature decrease "well below" 2°C. As a practical matter, the 1.5°C goal almost certainly would require geoengineering, such as injecting aerosols into the stratosphere or solar mirrors. Even getting well below 2°C is likely to require steps of that kind or a technological breakthrough for another kind of geoengineering, removing CO2 from the atmosphere. None of this has to happen soon, but sometime between now and the end of the century, something along these lines would probably be required.